Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Marilyn B. Dershowitz, Special Ref.), entered January 6, 2010, valuing and including certain marital assets in the distributive award, awarding plaintiff wife maintenance, counsel fees and expert fees, and holding the wife liable for 50% of the parties’ tax liability, unanimously modified, on the law and in the exercise of discretion, to the extent of vacating the valuations of Marcotex and of the parties’ condominium in Israel and remanding for a determination of their values, including defendant husband’s loan receivable in the marital estate, awarding the husband a credit against the distributive award in the amount of $182,382 for payments he made during the pendency of the action, and awarding the wife post-decision interest on the distributive award, and otherwise affirmed, without costs. Appeals from orders, same court and Special Referee, entered August 25, 2009 and October 13, 2009, unanimously dismissed, without costs, as subsumed in the appeal from the judgment.
While “[t]here is no uniform rule for fixing the value of a business for the purpose of equitable distribution” (Wasserman v Wasserman, 66 AD3d 880, 882 [2009]), the Special Referee did not sufficiently explain her basic concurrence in the valuation of the husband’s business by the wife’s appraiser (see Capasso v Capasso, 119 AD2d 268, 272 [1986]) despite the numerous recognized flaws in his report, including, among other things,
The wife failed to prove the value of the husband’s interests in Merryson and Royal Textiles (see Davis v Davis, 128 AD2d 470, 476 [1987]) or rebut his testimony regarding the depressed state and lack of value of these businesses at the time of trial. The marital apartment was properly valued based on the factual testimony of an experienced broker with knowledge of prices in the same building (see Matter of Semple School for Girls v Boyland, 308 NY 382, 388 [1955]). The duration and amount of maintenance awarded, to a wife in her 50s in a long-term marriage, who lacked business experience or a degree and had not been in the work force for years while raising children, was properly based on the relevant factors and evidence (see Naimollah v De Ugarte, 18 AD3d 268, 271 [2005]). The wife was properly assessed 50% of the parties’ tax liability for under-reporting income. She clearly benefitted from the use of the funds and the circumstances of this case are unlike those involving a failure to file returns with an innocent spouse not on notice of any wrongdoing (cf. Frey v Frey, 68 AD3d 1052 [2009]; Costello v Costello, 304 AD2d 517, 519 [2003]).
The Special Referee clearly and reasonably linked the award of $5,000 in maintenance for 15 years to the distributive award and we reject the husband’s claim that he is entitled to a credit
In a thoughtful, written opinion, the Special Referee awarded the wife an additional $65,000 in counsel fees, substantially less than the total amount requested ($161,972.50, an amount that included a prior award of $25,000). In support of her decision to award less than the amount requested, the Special Referee took into account, inter alia, the substantial equitable distribution award, the $5,000 maintenance award, the fact that the wife “[p]lainly . . . has more liquid assets than the husband,” that numerous motions by the wife were “soundly defeated” and that “certain litigation strategy by the wife’s counsel was nonproductive.” The Special Referee noted the failure of the wife’s counsel to comply with 22 NYCRR 1400.2, which entitles the client “to receive a written, itemized bill on a regular basis, at least every 60 days.” The Special Referee also noted that counsel had provided a “mere four bills” over a 26-month period of the representation. As the husband argues, the bills “lumped together multiple legal services rendered and [a] total amount for ... all of those services.” Indeed, one such bill lumped together dozens of separate services counsel provided and stated the total number of hours (136) for all the services. To be sure, a computer printout providing considerably more specificity concerning the number of hours spent on each day that services were provided was admitted into evidence at the hearing. But for that printout and counsel’s testimony that the daily entries were prepared either contemporaneously or shortly thereafter, we would direct an additional reduction in the fee award. Without impugning counsel’s integrity in the slightest,
We have considered the parties’ other claims for affirmative relief and find them unavailing. Concur — Andrias, J.P., Friedman, McGuire, Acosta and DeGrasse, JJ.